York County, VA Short-Term Rentals: Taxes & Fees (2026)

Article VIII of Chapter 21 does not carve out a separate rule for short-term rentals; instead it folds them into the same transient occupancy tax scheme that covers hotels by defining "Lodging Facility" in Sec. 21-92 to include "any place that offers Short-Term Lodging," alongside tourist homes, tourist cabins, and camping grounds. That means a host renting a spare room or a whole house through an online platform owes the same occupancy tax collection duty as a hotel operator. Because most short-term rental bookings run through a platform that fits the code's definition of "accommodations intermediary," Sec.

21-96(f) imposes a platform-specific reporting duty found nowhere in the hotel-only provisions: each accommodations intermediary must submit the property addresses, gross receipts, and total number of room nights for every accommodation it facilitates in York County to the Commissioner of the Revenue on a monthly basis. Sec. 21-96(g) lets an individual host skip filing its own monthly report only if all of that host's bookings go through an intermediary and the host files an annual attestation to that effect; the moment the host takes an unassisted booking, it must report and remit tax on that booking itself.

The Commissioner may inspect these records, and the same collection, remittance, and penalty framework that applies to hotels applies to short-term rental hosts and their booking platforms alike.